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Recipe: Queen of Puddings

What's in a name?

This week's recipe is a true British classic. Some old sources refer to it simply as Queen's Pudding while others use what I think is a better name: Queen of Puddings. Refer to the comments at the bottom of this post for my theory on why the latter is a better name.

Description

I like easy recipes. Modern recipe books seem to like to make things over-complicated. Perhaps their authors think they need to innovate to sell their book. Well I disagree. I believe simplicity is key. After all, that is what this blog is all about - preserving old British recipes.

Queen of Puddings is easy to make and uses very basic ingredients, but the result is very tasty. This recipe should provide four servings.

Ingredients

1 bag of Ruskoline Crumb Dressing (there are 2 bags in a pack - just use one of them). Ok, substitute half a cup of regular bread crumbs if you must; I suppose my business will recover eventually.

2 cups of milk

3 eggs

Sugar

Vanilla Essence

Robertson's, Hartley's or Stute brand imported British jam (hey, come on I have to make a living you know)

Preparation

Empty the Ruskoline into a large mixing bowl, boil the milk and pour over the Ruskoline

Add a few drops of vanilla essence and some sugar. Stir, cover and leave for a few minutes

Separate the eggs, beat the yolks and stir them into the Ruskoline/milk mixture

Grease a baking dish, melt some jam and pour it into the dish

Add the Ruskoline mix to the baking dish and place in an oven at 350F for 30 minutes

Whisk the eggs whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks appear

When the pudding has nearly finished baking remove it from the oven and spread the egg white meringue over the top of the pudding.

Turn up the heat to 400F and bake until the tips of the meringue peaks start to turn brown

Serve immediately to a grateful family who will worship you but expect the same quality of food for dinner every evening thereafter. You have been warned.

Blatant advertising:

And why not? You can buy the Ruskoline and the Jam at Blighty's Tuck Store but I'm afraid you'll have to mug a farmer for the milk and eggs.

Cussons Imperial Leather Soap

This is almost certainly the best known soap in Britain. It's distinctive scent, created in 1768 for a Russian prince, is loved by millions, both in Britain and abroad.

The soap with that very regal scent, originally called "Imperial Russian leather" was created in 1938. During the war years, when soap was rationed, Imperial Leather became very popular because of its reputation for lasting longer than regular soaps.

During the 1950s, Cussons began a TV advertising campaign. It was the appearance of Cussons ads during airing of popular TV shows that led to the popularization of the term "soaps" to describe popular TV dramas.